Recommendation
MM bully romance
Bully to lovers is one person who did something to the other and now wants him. It's a harder book to write than enemies to lovers and a much harder one to end, which is why the shelf is mostly not that.
Three kinds: the ones where it happened to one of them, the stepbrothers who can't get away from each other, and the rivals who both started it. Nothing gentle in any of them, and where a heat rating exists at all it's a four or a five.
Updated 29 August 2026
The three kinds, and which is which
Work out which one you're after and the page does the rest:
- Bully to lovers. One of them did it, the other had it done to him, and the book has to get through that before it can do anything else.
- Stepbrother bully. The same thing, except they share a house and neither gets to go home and shut the door on it. That makes it worse, not milder.
- Rivals. It runs both ways, both of them keep it going, and nobody has to be forgiven at the end.
- Heat and ending stated plainly for every book. You shouldn't have to find out at chapter twenty.
What the heat ratings mean
The five point scale romance readers already use, lowest to highest. Every book below is marked on it.
- Glimpses and kisses a kiss at most, and no sex on or off the page
- Behind closed doors it happens, but the door shuts first
- Open door at least one scene you are in the room for, written without the explicit words
- Explicit open door two or more scenes, explicit, and a range of things happening
- Explicit and plentiful several explicit scenes spread through the book
Bully to lovers
The bullying is the problem the book has to solve. Everything else waits.
Pansies
Alexis Hall
AboutAlfie Bell is back home for a wedding, rich and successful and about two years into knowing he is gay. He picks up a man in a pub and it goes well. In the morning Fen tells him they were at school together, and that Alfie is the reason those years were what they were.
Read it ifYou want the bully to have to do the work, and you want to know why he did it rather than only watch him pay for it.
DifferentAlfie's POV throughout, so you only ever see Fen from outside, and that's the common complaint. Fen also knew from the first night and said nothing, which is the thing the two of them have to get past before anything else.
SettingA northern seaside town, and the wedding that brought him back
HeatExplicit open door - 4 of 5 on romance.io
EndingHEA.
SeriesFourth of four Spires books, and it reads alone. Glitterland starts them.
Rating4.10 on Goodreads, from 4,747 ratings
Fun factHall wrote it as a book about toxic masculinity, and that's what it reads as first.
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Untitled brothel novel
Lorraine H.
Not written yet
Untitled brothel novel
Lorraine H.
AboutHe made this man's life hell at school, back when one of them had money and the other didn't. Years later he finds him working at a brothel. He keeps going back, and he keeps paying.
DifferentBoth POVs, and the bully is the one who can't stay away. The money is exactly where it was at school, except now he's handing it over, and it takes him a long time to admit what he's doing there.
SettingA brothel, years after school
HeatExplicit and plentiful
The Revenge Game
Jax Calder
AboutAndrew Yates was the skinny gay kid a pack of jocks went after daily. He sold his tech company at twenty-seven, ran into Justin in a London pub, and Justin had no idea who he was. So Andrew took a job in the IT department where Justin works and moved into a flat down the road from his.
Read it ifYou want the bully on the receiving end for once, and you want it funny rather than harrowing.
DifferentA romantic comedy about being bullied, which sounds like it shouldn't work and mostly does. Andrew keeps who he is to himself for most of the book, and that's the complaint: the longer he leaves it, the worse the confession has to be. Justin is closeted, and the stepfather who made him that way is why he was the way he was at school.
SettingLondon, and the IT department of Justin's company
HeatExplicit open door - 4 of 5 on romance.io
EndingHEA.
SeriesFirst of two Revenge Club books.
Rating4.20 on Goodreads, from 4,438 ratings
Fun factAndrew runs most of the revenge through Justin's work email account.
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Bully King
Andi Jaxon
AboutRoman King is the quarterback of a small Kentucky town with nothing else going for it, and Jonah Cohen is the pastor's son he has picked out. Jonah is praying to be taken out of it altogether. Then they start sleeping together, and in that town it's the thing that would finish them both.
Read it ifYou want it while it's still happening rather than years later, and you want the setting to be part of why.
DifferentJonah narrates, so it's happening to him as you read rather than being remembered from a safe distance. The content notes cover things done to him that he didn't agree to, along with homophobia and violence, none of it implied.
SettingAmerican football, and a Kentucky town that turns out for it
HeatExplicit and plentiful - 5 of 5 on romance.io
EndingNot a HEA. A couple in progress and a hopeful note rather than a settled one.
SeriesFirst of the Love is Love books.
Rating3.74 on Goodreads, from 4,724 ratings
Fun factThe title is a pun. He's Roman King.
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A Shot at Forgiveness
Cardeno C.
AboutA dozen years and a law degree after school, Rafi Steiner still hasn't forgiven Isaac Jones. Isaac bullied him the whole way through and plays in the NBA now. He turns up at Rafi's favourite restaurant acting like they were friends, gets told where to go, and keeps coming back. He bullied Rafi because he wanted him, and he still does.
Read it ifYou've got an hour, and you want to watch him work for it.
DifferentA novella, so it moves fast and the forgiveness lands sooner than some readers can go with. Whether wanting him covers twelve years of what he did is left entirely to you.
SettingTwo thousand miles from the town they grew up in
HeatNot rated - no rating found, and no review states one
EndingHEA
SeriesStandalone.
Rating3.66 on Goodreads, from 1,263 ratings
Fun factCardeno C. writes under initials, has a corporate day job, and every book ends happy by the author's own promise.
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Stepbrother bully
Neither of them chose the family and neither can leave the house, so it runs day and night instead of only at school.
For the Fans
Nyla K.
AboutKyran is the disciplined one with an NFL career ahead of him and Avi is the artist, and a family arrangement neither of them chose has made them stepbrothers. Short of money at college, Avi sets up an account selling content, and the pair of them work out that the audience will pay a great deal more for two.
Read it ifYou wanted forbidden and slow burn rather than bullying, which is what most people who arrive at this trope actually want.
DifferentNeither of them does anything to the other that needs forgiving. What they have to get past is money and the family. No third act break-up either.
SettingCollege American football, and a house they share
HeatExplicit and plentiful - 5 of 5 on romance.io
EndingHEA
SeriesStandalone.
Rating4.27 on Goodreads, from 101,054 ratings
Fun factIf you've seen one book on a bully list, it was this one.
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Chokehold
Leigh Rivers and Harleigh Beck
AboutCole Carter and Blaise Rowle were made stepbrothers by an arrangement neither of them wanted. Both have girlfriends and a great deal to say about hating each other. Then comes a masked chase game, where neither of them has to admit who he is or what he wants.
Read it ifYou want the dark end of it, and you've read the content notes and want it anyway.
DifferentThe content notes run long and the book shows all of it: violence inside the family, somebody drugged, and one scene that comes close to going past consent. Read them first rather than after. Miscommunication drives a long stretch of the middle.
SettingA college campus, and a house two stepbrothers share
HeatExplicit and plentiful - 5 of 5 on romance.io
EndingHEA. The epilogue is five years on and they're married.
SeriesStandalone.
Rating3.88 on Goodreads, from 25,246 ratings
Fun factTwo authors, one each. Leigh Rivers writes Cole and Harleigh Beck writes Blaise.
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Rivals, where it runs both ways
Both of them started it and both keep it going, so nobody has to be forgiven at the end.
Hidden Scars
Andi Jaxon
AboutJeremy Albrooke has been put in a room with Charles Preston Carmichael, the golden boy of college hockey. Preston enjoys telling him what he's doing wrong, and enjoys doing it in front of people. Then Preston goes home for a weekend and comes back destroyed, and Jeremy works out that somebody in that house has been doing it to him his whole life.
Read it ifYou want college hockey, and you can sit with a book where the harm is at home and Jeremy can't fix it.
DifferentJeremy narrates, so Preston stays shut to you for a long stretch. The needling between them is mutual and it stops early. The book opens on the worst of its content notes, a child being hurt and not written around, and Jeremy can't save him from it either.
SettingDarby University, and an ice hockey team
HeatExplicit and plentiful - 5 of 5 on romance.io
EndingHEA
SeriesFirst of three Darby U Hockey Boys books.
Rating4.06 on Goodreads, from 21,714 ratings
Fun factJaxon keeps a trigger warnings page on her own website.
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Savage Rivals
Becca Steele
AboutLevi captains the Alstone High side and Asher captains Highnam Academy, and what started on the pitch stopped staying on it a long time ago. Then one night they sleep together, and hating each other stops being the simple option.
Read it ifYou want it mutual, you want it English, and you want the whole thing done inside a couple of hundred pages.
DifferentSchool here means sixth form. Levi's POV only. It sits in Steele's connected Alstone universe, so names you don't know turn up as somebody else's couple, and none of it stops you reading this one alone.
SettingTwo rival schools in the south of England, and the soccer between them
HeatExplicit open door - 4 of 5 on romance.io
EndingHEA.
SeriesStandalone.
Rating3.94 on Goodreads, from 13,908 ratings
Fun factThe edition on sale now is longer than the one that came out in 2021, with extra content added to the ending.
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Hateful Love
T. Ashleigh and Addison Beck
AboutSilas sleeps on the couch in his mum's trailer, having given his bed to his sister-in-law and her daughter. His father and brother are both in jail. Blaine is the quarterback, the best dressed boy in school and the mayor's son. They can't stand each other, and they're sleeping together within a few chapters.
Read it ifYou want the bad boy and the jock, both of them narrating, and you don't mind it dark.
DifferentThe trouble comes from outside the pair of them rather than between them, and Blaine's father running the town is most of it. How much room that plot takes up is what readers split on. Content notes run long and include somebody given drugs without knowing.
SettingAmerican football, and the high school team Blaine plays for
HeatExplicit and plentiful - 5 of 5 on romance.io
EndingHEA, hard won.
SeriesFirst of two. Painful Love follows.
Rating4.01 on Goodreads, from 8,393 ratings
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Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between bully romance and enemies to lovers?
Direction. Enemies to lovers is mutual, two people who each give as good as they get, and neither of them owes the other an apology by the end. Bully romance is one-directional: one of them did something to the other, and the book has to deal with that before it can deal with anything else. Both end up on the same shelf.
How many MM bully romances actually exist?
Depends what you count. Four are the pure form, where one of them did it and the other had it done to him. Add the stepbrother books and the rivals, which is what the shelves do, and it comes to nine.
Which MM bully romance should I read first?
Pansies if you want it thoughtful and gentler than the trope usually is. The Revenge Game if you want it funny. Bully King only if you're happy without a settled ending, because it doesn't have one, and A Shot at Forgiveness if you only have an hour. If it was the stepbrother kind you were after, For the Fans, and if it was rivals, Savage Rivals is the shortest way in.
Are they all explicit?
Yes, bar one. Every book with a romance.io rating sits at four or five out of five. A Shot at Forgiveness is rated nowhere and no review states its heat either way.
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